Stay Vigilant: Weekly Updates from OpenMedia.ca

Copyright bill C-11 finished its committee stage this week. We're happy that many feared amendments did not make their way into the bill, but it still contains very restrictive digital locks provisions. As the bill takes its last steps through parliament, it's important that the pro-Internet community stays vigilant on this issue. Keep spreading the word about No Internet Lockdown here.

Let's keep up the fight,

- The OpenMedia.ca Team

Recent News:

While the CRTC has recently reprimanded Rogers for continuing to implement the discriminatory use of P2P throttling, the pro-internet community in Europe is calling for tough action from regulators to confront widespread throttling practices.

Article by Nick Wood for Total Telecom.

European operators are regularly using traffic management techniques that throttle or block access to certain online services, claimed the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) on Monday. Read more »

Remember when the government said that its Lawful Access Bill C-30 would only cost about $80 Million dollars and then some?

What if we told you those estimates are totally off the mark?

Well, here goes: The estimates are probably off. Okay, they’re way off. Christopher Parsons, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Victoria, knows a thing or two about digital information and privacy. Parsons wrote a stellar article analyzing how one would have to go about setting costs for Bill C-30. He also attempts to find out how the government arrived at the $80 million number. He found this last part a little puzzling. You should really go and read the article yourself, but we’ve summarized it here for you in case you’ve only got time for the quick basics. Read more »

The clause-by-clause examination of Copyright Bill C-11 finished today, and the bill is now being reprinted (with the government amendments that all passed—no opposition amendments passed) and sent back to the House of Commons for third reading and then on to the Senate. Read more »

I'm clearly not Rick Mercer, but I did my own Russell McOrmond Rant videos yesterday as part of mythoughts about meeting 10 of the Copyright Bill C-11 special legislative committee. I have been attending nearly all C-11 committee meetings, as I had done with the version of this bill that was tabled before the election. Read more »

The Bill C-11 committee has just opened the clause-by-clause review of the copyright bill with 39 amendments on the table: 8 from the goverment, 17 from the NDP, and 14 from the Liberals. The good news is that the misinformation campaign on issues such as fair dealing, user generated content, consumer provisions, statutory damages, and Internet provider liability has largely failed as the government is not proposing significant changes to those provisions. These all represent good compromise positions that will likely remain intact.

Unfortunately, the digital lock provisions will also remain largely unchanged as the government is not proposing to link circumvention to copyright infringement (both the NDP and Liberals have put forward such amendments). The music and movie lobby are getting one of their demands as the enabler provision will be expanded from targeting sites "primarily designed" to enable infringement to providing a service primarily for the purpose of enabling acts of infringement. The CIMA demand for an even broader rule has been rejected as has calls to add statutory damages to the provision. Read more »

The Canadian Music Publishers Association wants provisions akin to the United States' Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) included in Canada's proposed copyright act Bill C-11, according to an Internet law and privacy expert. The CMPA's proposal to the Bill C-11 Committee calls for Web site blocking provisions included in the bill, said Michael Geist, Canada research chair of Internet and e-commerce at the University of Ottawa. “Yesterday the Canadian Music Publishers Association added to the demand list by pulling out the SOPA playbook and calling for Web site blocking provisions,” Geist said in his blog.

He said the CMPA admitted their proposal bears a similarity to SOPA and Protect IP Act (PIPA), but stressed that it was narrower than the U.S. bills. Read more »

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been away for a while. Sorry about that for those of you who missed me. Let’s just say that I learned the hard way the steep cost of blogging, twitter, facebook, writing for the Globe and Mail, all for free, while holding down a real paying job where one has to actually teach, research and contribute to the department you’re in. There’s only so many hours in a day.

While away there’s been a mounting backlog of stuff to write about, and over the next few weeks I’ll unfold a series of blogs, but let me kick off with the current state of play for the Copyright Modernization Act (Bill C11). This is the fourth effort to revamp copyright law in Canada in the last seven years, and things are rapidly coming to head.

The bill itself has numerous elements that are actually not bad as currently written (no term extension for copyright holders, a very limited role for ISPs, search engines and others as ‘digital gatekeepers’, an innovative user created content add-on to fair dealing, etc.), but deeply troubling aspects as well (the digital locks provisions, notably). Read more »

Check out this coverage of digital locks, and the rules in Copyright Bill C-11 that may make Canada the country with the most restrictive digital lock provisions in the world. What this video doesn't say is that behind-the-scenes, Big Media is pushing for amendments to the bill that could lead to “a radical reform of the Internet in Canada” for the worse. Internet law expert Michael Geist writes that "taken together, the proposals would require Internet providers to block access to foreign sites, take down content without court oversight, and disclose subscriber information without a warrant." Read more »

The Digital Action Team is a community of people committed to taking regular actions to safeguard the open and affordable Internet. OpenMedia.ca sends this community special updates, reports and actions. If you'd like to be a part of the Team you can sign up here.

Dear Digital Action Team,

You joined our powerful action team to be kept in the loop about special online actions and other key opportunities to help safeguard the open and affordable Internet. From pushing back against the government's online spying plan to preventing Big Telecom from forcing price-gouging on all Canadians through controlled metered billing, it's amazing what we've accomplished together.

We need your help now more than ever:

Internet law expert Michael Geist recently revealed that behind-the-scenes, Big Media is pushing for such strong powers that, if accepted, could lead to “a radical reform of the Internet in Canada”. Read more »